CNN anchor Abby Phillip said she “didn’t catch” an inaccurate statement she made on Tuesday regarding the bombing attempt in New York City.
Authorities said Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, have been charged with providing material support to ISIS and using a weapon of mass destruction on Monday. The two suspects attempted to deploy two makeshift bombs at a protest outside Gracie Mansion, the residence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Phillip said on Tuesday night that two Republican lawmakers said “Muslims don’t belong” in the United States “after an attempted terror attack against New York’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani.”
She later corrected herself the following day.
“I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS-inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani,” Phillip said on X. “That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead of time. I apologize for the error.”
Multiple users on X didn’t accept the apology warmly.
“Just to share some inside baseball here… what Abby is saying is her producers wrote her script, put it in prompter, and she didn’t preview it ahead of time despite having ample time to do so as any decent host does,” Washington Examiner columnist Joe Concha said on X. “Hence, ‘didn’t catch it in time.’”
“This just can’t be a simple mistake,” commentator Mary Katharine Ham said on X. “This broadcast is days after the attack and if you’re a newscaster, you have willfully misinformed yourself and then your viewers.”
“You are terrible at your job,” commentator Dave Rubin said on X.
“This retraction/correction needs to be made on camera at the start of her next show. A tweet is simply insufficient,” another user said on X.
CNN has received pushback for its initial coverage of the bombing attempt on X, saying in a deleted X post that the lives of “two Pennsylvania teenagers” would “drastically change” after throwing homemade bombs at a protest. The network said in a new post that its original statement “failed to reflect the gravity of the incident.”
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Concha compared CNN’s coverage to the idea of framing the Pearl Harbor bombing as two Japanese sailors “suddenly and unwittingly” attacking the United States on Tuesday. He also said CNN needs to “change everything” with its leadership and writers to regain its integrity.
The Washington Examiner contacted CNN for comment.